Savage
by Todeswind
Summary: A series of one shot short stories about the brutal nature of the Warhammer world.
1. Chapter 1

It had been foolish to leave the settlement unaided and unguarded. He'd spent so long cooped up in the abby within the burgeoning colony of New Ooelsnitz that his urge to explore entirely overwhelmed his common sense. He snuck out of the abby with only a week's provisions, a heavy burlap rucksack, and his prized books. He took a small blade with him, better suited for cutting back the thick brush of the forest than for defending his person.

Even the Abbot did not know where he'd gone.

He was alone in the wilderness.

No... not alone.

They'd ambushed them as he was examining a particularly fascinating circle of stones. Each stone was covered in an uncontrolled mass of vines and centuries of mos but each was unmistakably perfectly carved into a square that would easily have impressed the Imperial Architectural Institute in Dietzenburg.

A swift strike from behind and an agonizing headache later he'd awoken to discover his arms and legs bound and his body suspended above a cook fire. The gash across the side of his head did not hurt the tenth part as much as watching page after page covered in lovingly written notation fall into the fire, wisdom used for kindling.

The bronze cook pot bubbled cheerily, wafting a mouth watering scent of boiling stew spiced with the exotic flavors of Lustria. Bright colored lizards the size of Wagner's thumb were tossed into the pot with glee by the skink chef with casual aplomb. The small lizards flailed as they flew in little arks in trying to avoid the bubbling liquid, dancing in the air.

The other members of the tribe gibbered and hissed in the sibilant serpentine language of their kind, ophidian words warbled with a forked tongue as they bartered for trinkets and baubles. They growled in a low warbling staccato seemingly disconnected from their conversations over the cook pot, a rhythmic rumble, grr-ribbit-creek, grr-ribbit-creek, grr-ribbit-crack.

It was the first time Wager had ever even heard that the Lizardmen society had music. Few written accounts of the Lizardmen's culture dealt with anything other than warfare. The great lizards of the dark continent had little patience for the intrusions of mammals. They tolerated humans at best and loathed their very existence by some accounts. All analysis of their motivation was little more than speculation though.

The Lizardmen apparently felt neither the need nor the inclination to explain their actions. Some speculated that they even lacked the capacity.

Under different circumstances Brother Phinieas Wagner would have been thrilled to catalogue this newfound knowledge into one of his many leather bound diaries, taking care to write his notes in the margin with a careful hand so as not to smudge the ink or waste paper. Every sheet of paper cost a thousand times its weight in gold.

However at the moment his academic interests in the skinks was secondary to a burning desire not to be suspended above a bubbling cook pot. And his books! How could anyone do that to books?

He could mourn the loss of his books later, he had to remind himself, now was the time for action. It was a good though, a proactive one. But for the life of him he couldn't think of a way to do it. He was no adventurer, no Celle of Danme with bulging thews and a sword blessed by the will of Sigmar. Wagner was an overweight scholar from Heilsbron with a fondness for breeding racing pigeons.

Play to your strengths Wagner, he grumbled to himself, play to your strengths. He thought of everything he knew about he Lizardman, he needed something anything that he could use to his own advantage. Most of the Lizardmen could understand the speech of men, even if they couldn't speak it themselves. They were superstitious and prone to mysticism, with a great respect for magic.

_Wait... magic_Wagner grinned wildly as he thought to the date. It was mid day and the chaos moon was moving into alignment with the sun in a matter of minutes. These savages would soon be at his mercy,_ You're a clever man Wagner. Use your knowledge against them. _

He sat and hoped, staring towards the heavens and hoping against hope. He waited and watched in glee as the sphere moved across the sky, blotting out the sun from view. His heart leapt with joy even as smoke filled his nostrils. He looked down and glared into the eyes of the largest and oldest of the tribe.

"I'm a powerful mage," Wagner threatened, "You shall let me down from here. I warn you not to test my power. See how I've blotted out the sun."

The skinks ceased their conversations and stared from him, to the sun, and back again. Wagner prayed that the reports of Lizardmen's comprehension of human speech were correct and continued, "Let me go. Just let me go and I will bring back the sun."

The skink chief nodded to one of his underlings and motioned to the rope suspending him, before turning back to Wagner cheerfully, almost lazily amused. Wagner felt rush of of elation and victory as the lesser skink pulled out an obsidian knife and lowered him to the ground only a few paces away from the cook pot.

It was gone as quickly as it came. The chief snapped out, grabbing Wager's throat with a slash of razor sharp claws. A stream of hot arterial blood shot out and spurted across the skink's face, sticky red prominent over pale blue scales.

As the world faded into blackness the skink chief's lips ground out a rough approximation to the human language with his forked tongue, explaining the movements of the planets as was cataloged and predicted by his peoples for generations. The movements of the celestial bodies, as the chief put it, were regular predicable acts upon which there lay little in the way of mysticism only the simple collection of cause and effect.

He described the teachings of those who walked before. How each star and moon and planet was simply another ball of rock or pocket of gas nestled into a spot much like the one they lived upon, each spread out many millions of miles from each other.

Wagner died watching his books tossed to the fire that would roast his flesh, wishing only for a scrap of paper and a quill to write with.


	2. Chapter 2

Thuomas was undoubtedly dead. He had been dead for some twenty years. He just wished someone would bother to come down to his cell and finish the job.

Thuomas groaned and scratched his side, "Another day in paradise then."

A sorrowful dark surrounded him, the same dark that ravaged his being for years. The cell, by Sigmar would he never see the outside of the cell? Had he ever lived outside it?

Yes he had. The memory was vague but Thuomas could just touch the edge of a diaphanous vision of a strapping young thief with a thick red beard. A man possessed of more talent than prudence with an unfortunate addiction to the thrills of his profession. He was just the sort of man to try something stupid. He was just the sort of man to be his own undoing.

The cairns he'd snuck into at the edge of the sawtooth mountains were ancient and imposing, but not without their protectors. Foul men and monsters of Sylvania possessing devilry beyond reckoning resided within places of the dead, protecting the treasures within.

The cruel faced man who'd caught him had to have been a sorcerer of some sort, a necromancer no doubt. He'd smiled as enchanted darkness enveloped Thuomas, flashing jagged yellow teeth caked with filth and grime.

Those teeth haunted his dreams along with the Necromancer's shrill laughter. Night after night he watched the monster of a man weave devilry to kept him within the Cairn as punishment for his trespass, binding him with cold blackness.

His limbs, atrophied from years of fumbling at the cold stone with trembling fingers could never reach into the wide portcullis. His fingers got as close as the first stone before an unseen force burst forth and tossed him to the back of the cell.

And the hunger... would the hunger never abate? Moss and mushrooms grew on the walls, sour tasting and vile. He'd become sick the first time he'd eaten them and many times since. They were a paltry meal but they kept him alive... at least till... no. That was not an option. Not yet. He would not let the necromancer win.

"Curse you, curse you all to the lowest pits of hell," Thuomas pulled himself to his feet, grasping the thick roots penetrating the ceiling for support. His legs wobbled ominously, atrophied from days of disuse.

"Not all of us I hope," mumbled a ragged voice to Thuomas' left, "Lady be good, would that I were questing for an age."

Thuomas fell to the floor in shock, colliding painfully with the ground, "Sigmar be praised am I not alone?"

"No longer," hissed the voice. The cell echoed with the sound of shifting steel mail, "Ser Brandon of High Waters, questing knight of the realm."

"A knight of Brettonia," Thuomas spoke unsure of his words. He must have finally cracked from the pressure, "You're a long way from Albion."

"For honor's I ride, for honor's I will return," the knight spat on the ground, coughing violently. In the dim luminescence of the moss Thuomas could make out where Ser Brandon was clasping his side to keep a stomach wound closed, "Though I suspect I shall be passing on to the next great quest soon if we do not get to light and fresh water soon."

"Did," Thuomas hesitated, "How did you get here?"

"Twas the drýcræftiga," the knight rose to his feet and approached the portcullis.

"The what?"

"The filthy necromancer's pawns lad," snarled Ser Brandon, "Yes... crude works of darkness. I came here to hide from them and nurse my wound. I did not realize it was occupied."

"Not willingly so," Thuomas swore in bitterness.

"Ah," the knight ran his hand over the mucilaginous barrier of shadows blocking the exit, "Time to leave then boy?"

Could it be? Would he finally leave the darkness? His voice caught in his throat, "How?"

"My blade is the æled, a slayer of shadows," he groaned with agony, "Wouldst that I had the strength in my arm to I would draw æled and free us both. Nay," tossed the scabbard into Thuomas' arms, "You must do it."

"I don't know if I have the strength either!" Thuomas felt the hungers of decades gnaw at his bones, reminding of his own weakness. Ser Brandon knew not what he asked of Thuomas, "You must do it friend! Free us both and we shall slay the sorcerer."

"I cannot!"

"You shall. Lad free yourself from hesitancy."

Thuomas' arms protested as he pulled the heavy blade from its scabbard. The blade burst into a blaze of brilliant light, glorious and blinding. It was glorious to see anything, even if his eyes did ache with disuse.

Thomas squinted at he handsome smiling form of Ser Brandon, gazing at his blue and white checkered tabard stained with a thick coat of red blood. Thuomas lashed out with the blade, slicing into the portcullis and tearing through the enchantments. It had been twenty years but now he was free. The enchantment shattered with a resonant wail of agony.

The knight's proud face contorted in suprise, then rage, then abject horror, "Lad..." The blade cut in a glittering arc and all was silent, save for the wet sound of chewing.

Thuomas emerged the shadowy cave beneath the cairn and into bright sunlight some two hours later, enjoying the thrill of the sylvan beauty. He collapsed on the soft moss covering the hill, examining the æled and smacking his chops. After ten years of hunger it was glorious to have a belly full of man-flesh.

Thuomas was undoubtedly dead. He had been dead for some twenty years since the Necromancer cast some devilry upon him. Yet still he lived.

Not dead. Not alive. What was he?


	3. Chapter 3

There were no such things as Skaven. Everyone knew that.

Everyone, of course, except for the rat men themselves. A fact that continue to impress itself upon the unfortunate swordsman Friedrich Montague Von Stratholm. He lay bound upon a thick slab of black-green warpstone, in a massive amphitheater lined with grotesque creatures ripped from the worst nightmares of the deranged.

Hundreds if not thousands huge rats with the arms of ogres and far too many legs stood taller than a hippogryph, smacking their chops and pressing against the tight bars of their enchanted cells of stone and bone. Their cells were bound shut with foul magics, each of them locked in place with a single warp-stone foci hovering above the room. The floating stone bathed the whole space in an eery green luminescence.

The wholly impossible beast before him ignored his piteous moans, shoving the wadding further into his throat and binding it in place with a thick leather thong, "Shut up you disgusting creature."

"I despise you." It chittered, mousy whiskers flailing in spite, "You are small, petty and weak. As a species you are violent, as a race you are short-sighted, as a people you are arrogant, and as a nation you are cruel. But none of those are why I hate you. No, you deserve to be hated for an altogether more basic reason."

It grabbed the bound swordsman with it's taloned hand, reveling in the act of slicing his flesh, "You do not belong." Friedrich winced as the vermin prodded his bloodied chest with a gnarled claw.

"You are disgusting excuses for man-flesh, strutting about the land which is ours, prancing in the sunlight as though it were yours." It spat into Friedrich's face, "It is not. It is the domain of the Horned Rat, and will be his glorious paradise when the Skaven finally unite as one people to crush those who do not belong."

Friedrich struggled with the tight ropes binding his wrists behind his back, fumbling with his sleeves for the blade he knew to be hidden in its folds as the rat-man continued it's annoyed pontification, "We were born of Kavzar upon the husks of your dead and screaming, you are the fuel to our glory. The children of the blessed stones, we are gifted in ways you cannot imagine. We are perfect in ways of which you cannot understand."

"We laugh at your arrogant denial of our existence. We have sacked your cities, taken your women, enslaved your children and gorged ourselves upon man-flesh and still the best and cleverest of your leaders think us nothing more than legends and whispers." The rat man indulged in a brief moment of laughter, "I have more slaves in my palace than there are citizens in the Empire and yet you still deny our existence."

"We slip into your cities and homes at night, culling those whom we please." Friedrich resisted the urge to smile as his fingers touched the hilt of the dagger in his sleeve, pulling it out slowly so as not to alert his verminous captor. "Surgeons purging this world of your cancerous race, we have sacked cities with disease faster than you could crush with even your most potent of magics."

Friedrich sawed at the ropes with his blade, balancing the urgency of his need to escape with the equal need for secrecy. The blood soaked rag in his lips made him gag as he bit down on it, the taste of a previous victim fresh on his lips.

The vermin busied himself with a table laden with the tools and augurs of sorcery, taking handfuls of curious herbs and oils and combining them with pinches of shimmering warp-stone dust. Odd and ominous plumes of smoke and flame twisted about the creature's fingers as it worked, hissing and chittering in apparent enjoyment, "I do grant you that you will last longer than any Skaven slave would for my experiments. Humans are well suited to receive pain."

It laughed at it's own joke as it chittered, "I suppose your gods destined you to suffer. They had at least some wisdom in making you."

The ropes around Friedrich's wrists gave way behind him, freeing his arms. He dared not unbind his legs, not while the curved scimitar of the rat man was between him and his blade. But the rat would die, just as soon as it got within reach of him.

The rat man approached him slowly, holding a bowl of evil looking brew in both hands. The rat scuttled closer and closer, beat by beat, second by second. Friedrich did not move till the last instant, swiping out with his blade as the rat-man reached to untie the leather thong about his neck.

The creature howled in fury as the blade sank into it's chest, burying to the hilt in where it's heart should have been. Where the heart would have been on any man, but it was not a man. The creature hissed like a scalded cat, scampering backwards as it pressed its hand across seeping black blood. It grabbed a handful of warp-stone dust, spreading it across the cut and binding it shut in an instant.

The rat-ogres crowed in hunger and desperation at the blood in the air, worked into a frenzy in their apparent starvation. The rat-man brandished his scimitar at the still immobile swordsman, sneering at the six inch blade held in the warrior's fingertips. "You pathetic little waste of man-flesh."

Friedrich cut the gag from his face, ripping the foul rags from his mouth and wretching as he replied. "I will defeat you, the Empire will defeat you, mankind will crush the Skaven beneath our boots."

"Human, you cannot even hope to live though the day," The rat-man sliced a rope on the wall, releasing a heavy stone attached to a huge bell. The room echoed with the thunderous clangs of the bell, sounding an alarm to the surrounding under-city. "My guards will be here in moments and slaughter you."

Friedrich's lip curled in disgust.

"You are pathetic, human," Hissed the vermin, "Do you know why your species yet lives? Why you have the luxury of breath? Because we are not united. The only thing that can destroy the Skaven is ourselves. Resist in any way and you _will_ die horribly. "

"Yes," Friedrich replied, the fatalistic Imperial sense of humor coloring his voice as he tossed his blade. It was a humble weapon but it flew true, sailing up into the air as it rocketed towards the wide piece of warp-stone hovering in the air. The rat-man's eyes bulged in horror as the enchanted stone shattered, freeing the hordes of mad and starved beasts. "But I do not take the trip alone."


End file.
